The Humanist magazine (see May/June 08) has a review this month of my book Humanism for Parents - Parenting without Religion by Jennifer Hancock (see Sumo Girl).
It is a good review and very thorough.
if you don't get The Humanist, you should and if you do, then check out the review.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
A Humanist-Life-Stories Publication?
The Humanists of Silicon Valley are sponsoring the development of a "Humanist Life Stories" book. This is akin to the Humanist Heritage effort the Humanist Society did a while back. I consider it a great idea and I hope they can pull it off. For my part, I'll be sure to submit one or two stories. If any of you are interested, let me know and I'll get you in touch with them.
We, Arthur Jackson (president) and Armineh Noravian (vice president) of the Humanist Community in Silicon Valley, California, wish to share an exciting idea with you. Our constant search for ideas to promote Humanism has led us to the realization that one important area is the manner in which Humanists deal with difficult or unusual life circumstances. We believe that sharing such experiences will provide important models of how Humanists live with life’s challenges without divine guidance.
This idea has defined one of our projects, which is to compile a series of life stories by Humanists all across the world. With this goal in mind, we would like to request your help by asking that you send us a life story that might ultimately be printed in a book, which we would like to title “Humanist Life Stories- Sharing our experiences with difficult problems”. We know that projects like this have been discussed before, but are not aware of any collections that are currently available. If you know of any, please tell us.
We believe that the outcome of such an exciting project will have a number of positive consequences, both for Humanism and all those participating in the project.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Wannabe Scholars -or- What counts as evidence?
This last week I received a book
Evidence and Paul's Journeys by Jefferson White.
Jefferson is claiming to be a scholar who has spent many years investigating how "evidence" is used by scholars, especially as it relates to Paul's Journeys. He goes through a long diatribe as an introduction extolling the failures of scholars to look at real evidence and says that instead they look at theory and ideas and then try to present it as evidence.
He goes on to give a definition of evidence that he will use for the book he has written about Paul's travels. Listen to this definition of evidence:
in other words, the bible is assumed to be true, period. Have you ever heard such utter crap? If I were to present you (him?) with the FSM Bible and said that my evidence for it being real is its claim that it is correct and that constitutes evidence unless you can prove it false, you would call me (rightly) nuts. I've done a fair bit of research into this myself (though I wouldn't claim to be a scholar) and I know very well how much the Bible was rewritten as needed over the first three centuries and how little of it is truly original writings of the claimed author (though some of Paul's letters were). Still, to say you know about "real" evidence and then to present such a ridiculous definition is pathetic at best.
How can people be so stupid/ignorant as that? And, I'm ashamed to say, he claims to be in Computer Science; if someone in computers can't get basic logic right and thinks evidence is a completely invalid assumption, how will we ever get the general population to understand?
Evidence and Paul's Journeys by Jefferson White.
Jefferson is claiming to be a scholar who has spent many years investigating how "evidence" is used by scholars, especially as it relates to Paul's Journeys. He goes through a long diatribe as an introduction extolling the failures of scholars to look at real evidence and says that instead they look at theory and ideas and then try to present it as evidence.
He goes on to give a definition of evidence that he will use for the book he has written about Paul's travels. Listen to this definition of evidence:
1. The biblical record is assumed to be true unless it can be shown to be false.
2. if a contradiction is alleged to exist between the bible record and other historical evidence, and there is a reasonable explanation to account for it, the contradiction is not proved.
in other words, the bible is assumed to be true, period. Have you ever heard such utter crap? If I were to present you (him?) with the FSM Bible and said that my evidence for it being real is its claim that it is correct and that constitutes evidence unless you can prove it false, you would call me (rightly) nuts. I've done a fair bit of research into this myself (though I wouldn't claim to be a scholar) and I know very well how much the Bible was rewritten as needed over the first three centuries and how little of it is truly original writings of the claimed author (though some of Paul's letters were). Still, to say you know about "real" evidence and then to present such a ridiculous definition is pathetic at best.
How can people be so stupid/ignorant as that? And, I'm ashamed to say, he claims to be in Computer Science; if someone in computers can't get basic logic right and thinks evidence is a completely invalid assumption, how will we ever get the general population to understand?
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Back in it...
A few months ago I decided to stop blogging for a while because this blog had taken a direction that I hadn't originally intended. Mostly this was to be about spirituality within Humanism. However, as I became more and more frustrated with the direction America is taking and with the Bush administration and how there are people trying to turn us into a Theocracy, I found myself blogging against things things of for things.
That wasn't my intent, but it was a natural outcome of the environment we are in. I wanted to take some time off to reevaluate my stance and my intentions for this blog.
In the end, many of the things I have been blogging about are as or more important than the original intent of this blog. Therefore, I've decided to get back to blogging about whatever comes up that feels important (regarding Humanism and freedom of belief of course) and not worry so much about the original intent (or name) of this blog.
So, you can look forward (or not) to my ranting on various applicable topics. In the next few days (and this is one of the things that convinced me to get back in the game), I'll post on the idiocy of some wannabe scholars when it comes to evaluating the bible.
Cheers, Sean
That wasn't my intent, but it was a natural outcome of the environment we are in. I wanted to take some time off to reevaluate my stance and my intentions for this blog.
In the end, many of the things I have been blogging about are as or more important than the original intent of this blog. Therefore, I've decided to get back to blogging about whatever comes up that feels important (regarding Humanism and freedom of belief of course) and not worry so much about the original intent (or name) of this blog.
So, you can look forward (or not) to my ranting on various applicable topics. In the next few days (and this is one of the things that convinced me to get back in the game), I'll post on the idiocy of some wannabe scholars when it comes to evaluating the bible.
Cheers, Sean
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